Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 21 June 2019 in Python • Tagged with python, security • 5 min read
Data security is becoming more and more prevalent in today's society than ever before. We must make a conscious effort to secure both our physical lives, but also our digital lives as well. With data privacy, sharing of information and access control becoming integrated into most people's life in some …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 10 May 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with electrical • 2 min read
Voltage drop is a electrical phenomenon in that wires carrying current always have resistance, or impedance to the current flow. Voltage drop is defined as the amount of loss that occurs through part of or all of a circuit due to resistance/impedance.
The most well known analogy for explaining …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 05 April 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with electrical, esp8266 • 1 min read
Following the previous two weeks of topics, Introduction to ESP32/ESP8266 and What is MicroPython?. I wrote an article on maker.pro in which I describe how to program the ESP8266 with MicroPython in detail.
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 22 March 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with esp8266 • 3 min read
The ESP32 and ESP8266 are low-cost Wi-Fi modules, which are perfect for DIY Internet of Things (IoT) projects. They both come with general purpose input/output pins (GPIOs), support a variety of protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART and many more. The most attractive part …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 15 March 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with networking • 2 min read
Following last weeks post around network topologies, I believe the next topic to cover is routing and addressing. Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic to flow through in a network while addressing is marking elements within a network. A real-world example of routing and addressing is …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 08 March 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with networking • 3 min read
A network is defined as “A network is a collection of computers, servers, mainframes, network devices, peripherals, or other devices connected to one another to allow the sharing of data”. There are various configurations of networks for specific design scenarios as represented in:
Typical residential home networks are configured in …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 01 March 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with electrical • 2 min read
A C.T is the abbreviated form for a current transformer in electrical terms. It is a simple but effective use of magnetic circuits and transformer characteristics to monitor how power is behaving in a conductor. The C.T works by wrapping a coil of conductor around a core (typically …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 15 February 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with electrical • 2 min read
Before I started in a more buildings-focused electrical engineering position, I didn't think that much went into selecting lights for buildings. Once you first get started in lighting design, it is like opening a can of worms, there is so much detail that goes into lighting design, it's unfathomable.
First …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 01 February 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with power, electrical, python • 5 min read
I've always lived by the rule that if you can't explain something to a 5 year old then you don't know it well enough. I was asked recently by some (non-electrical focused) colleagues on a handful of electrical terms and components. One of the biggest things that kept popping up …
Posted by Jack McKew on Fri 18 January 2019 in Engineering • Tagged with electronics • 3 min read
I have a habit of misplacing all kinds of remotes within the house, TV, air conditioner, fans, etc, and having a different remote for everything can be quite annoying at times. So I decided to re-use some leftover components from a previous project to make a web enabled universal remote …